The New York Asian Film Festival is back with a “17-day gamma blast of Asia’s most electrifying voices and visions!” Amongst this cinematic trip around the South East, there’s a film from the Philippines that strikes for its willingness to persuade audiences to dismantle prejudices on certain professions and age groups.
Granny Prostitutes (titled Lola Magdalena in its original version) is directed with sensitivity and audacity by Joel Lamangan — the award-winning Filipino film director, television director and actor. His latest feat is loosely based on a a true story that landed in the news about ageing prostitutes.
The picture follows a plurality of elderly sex-workers, although the leader of them all is the one who gives the title to the film: Lola Magdalena, also known as Dalena (Gloria Diaz). She lives in a small town, in a home owned by Bella (Liza Lorena), that was bequeathed to her by a former lover and is persecuted by his son Mauro (Jim Pebanco) who wants to claim it back. Bella has never fully embraced motherhood, having given away to adoption her son Rigor (Marcus Madrigal), in the hope he would have a better life. The two have rekindled on friendly terms, with him as an adult running a motel where she and other prostitutes rent rooms for their clients: the Paradise Inn.
Bella has several tenants, besides Dalena, who pay her rent to live in the house she inherited. These include the romantic dreamer Luningning (Pia Moran), who is smitten for a boy who could be her grandson in age, Daks (Carlo San Juan) — he lives with Jona (Joni McNab) and will also get entangled with a wealthy old woman called Cathy (Kiti Lopez). Then there’s the oldest of the house, Corazon (Perla Bautista), who has dementia and is perpetually waiting for her first love, who eventually shows up: Ernesto (Joone Gamboa). Lastly there is Miriam (Sunshine Cruz), the youngest of the prostitute-household, a beautiful 45-year old who gets diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer, who has an insensitive mother (Myrna Castillo) and sister (Nella Marie Dizon).
Dalena works by day as an albularyo-healer in the church grounds, but at night, she moonlights as a street walker. She longs for the forgiveness of her daughter, Mayette (Harlene Bautista), who wants her out of her life for trying to pimp her as a child to some clients. Dalena tries her best to correct her mistakes through her grandchild, Angel (Angel Guardian), who is afflicted by lupus.
Granny Prostitutes is a humanising mosaic of two categories of discrimination: prostitution and older generations. This dramedy gives all its female characters space for their own story arcs to unfold, and for each one of them to have closure on their personal turmoils. All of the ladies in the narrative are given their moment to shine, thanks to the delicate script written by Dennis Evangelista, who is also the line producer. Despite they’ve been mistreated by a merciless society — and some like Miriam by their own relatives — they are like family and support each other through thick and thin.
Although all the actresses give formidable performances, Gloria Diaz is memorable. She was the first Filipino Miss Universe and now, at 72, she brings to life some emotional instants of a cheap streetwalker who confronts the humiliation of her line of work. In some scenes Diaz is heartbreakingly remarkable, like when she performs a striptease inside the cemetery for randy teenagers, or when she is on the set of a porn and gets arrested and, from jail, she explains to a reporter that she joined the production to help her sick granddaughter.
The tone of Granny Prostitutes blends drama with humour; socio-analysis with campiness. It all begins with a cheery and jingly music that sets up a light-hearted mood, we then traverse the emotional storm of each single story, to come full circle to the resolved situations that conclude with that same blissful melody.
The motion picture is about outsiders who team up to save their home and dignity. The cry against inequality and ageism comes from a feisty group of elderly escorts, who defy the disrespect they’ve been inflicted by those around them. Granny Prostitutes is a beautiful allegory of the capacity to withstand adversities, through compassion and endurance.
Final Grade: B+
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Check out our interview with Producer/Writer Dennis C. Evangelista on “Granny Prostitutes.”
Photos Courtesy of Hero Hito Film Production Corporation